RealSense is Intel's 3D camera initiative for bringing face recognition, gesture control, speech input, and augmented reality to the PC. Its closest analogy would be Microsoft's Kinect for Windows. The technology has been presented at Intel keynotes for a while now, embodied in the "Intel Perceptual Computing SDK 2013" under its "Perceptual Computing" initiative.

Since August 31st, that has been removed from their site and replaced with the Intel RealSense SDK. While the software is free, you will probably need compatible hardware to do anything useful. None is available yet, but the "Intel RealSense Developer Kit" hardware (not to be confused with the "Intel RealSense SDK", which is software) is available for reservation at Intel's website. The camera is manufactured by Creative Labs and will cost $99. They are also very clear that this is a developer tool, and forbid it from being used in "mission critical applications". Basically, don't trust your life on it, or the lives and health of any other(s) or anything.

The developer kit will be available for many regions: the US, Canada, much of Europe, Brazil, India, China, Taiwan, Japan, Malaysia, South Korea, New Zealand, Australia, Russia, Israel, and Singapore.

If you recall, the Nokia Lumia 1020 was the 41MP camera with a phone bolted to it that was released last year. Nokia is following up their unique product with a new version which will incorporate Kinect sensors into the phone and called it "3D Touch" or "Real Motion". Nokia sees possible usages such as turning on the phone by grabbing it and to hover your finger over a Live Tile and tap down in the air to bring up sub-menus. Combine gestures with Bluetooth and you will never again know if that strange person on the street is a hipster or hallucinating. Catch more at The Inquirer.

"KINECT TECHNOLOGY reportedly will debut on Windows Phone this year, with the sensors set to appear in the sequel to the Nokia Lumia 1020."

Gizmodo might be going a bit far in calling this a Holodeck but what Oliver Kreylos has done with three Kinects and an Oculus Rift is rather impressive. As with most cool new projects involving the Oculus you cannot capture what is going on with a picture but that doesn't help with the jealousy you will be feeling after watching some of the videos. The Kinects capture his motion and the Oculus displays his body inside the zombie game he is using; there will be some space limitations if you are not good at walking in place but it certainly seems less expensive to set up than previous devices we have seen.

"With no shortage of ingenuity, 3D video expert Oliver Kreylos managed to transplant his entire body into a virtual reality environment using three Microsoft Kinects and an Oculus Rift. It's a little fuzzy, but it's easy to recognize what he's really done. He's created a Holodeck—or something close to it."

You may have already stumbled upon the Leap Motion controller, a tiny USB 2.0 device intended to allow you to control your PC with hand motions, somewhat similar to the Kinect. Installing the software and placing the Leap Motion in front of your computer allows you to control a variety of apps and games using only hand motions. Unfortunately the app selections is rather limited and controlling your OS is not possible, at least not yet. It is less than $100 and does offer the potential for some fun so check out Legit Reviews to see if you might like to give it a try.

"The Leap Motion Controller brings affordable gesture control to the PC and gives developers a tool to bring new innovations to the PC industry. In our limited time with the Leap Motion Controller we quickly found out that it is very app limited due to there being less than 60 apps available at the time of launch. Leap Motion gave thousands of these devices to app developers and hoped they would develop some killer software..."

We do not like straying from our usual topics into the music, movie, and console gaming industries although I will make an exception for this. It has a computer hardware angle, I assure you.

So I came across an article this morning regarding a patent which Microsoft filed about a year and a half ago. This patent describes a process where a device can monitor the number of people viewing a copyrighted work and permit “remedial action” should that number increase beyond some arbitrary level. In other words, the technology would prevent or adjust the price of consuming content based on the number of people in your private residence.

Hey if you want to bring your significant other over -- that’ll cost you!

Hey did I tell you about this awesome DRM we're working on? Huge success.

It routinely frustrates me when people side with the content industry because they know that one-or-so unapologetic pirating acquaintance who they feel is ripping off the whole system. The problem is that all evidence which I have seen to suggest whether or not a pirate has actual damages actually shows sales increases or is wholly based on junior high school-level statistical errors.

The content industry does not demand for you to pay them for their content: they demand that you pay them for their content under specific conditions. There were no less than two services present at CES 2011 which allowed users to input a movie title to find out where it is legally available. If it was in Vudu, Hulu+, Netflix, in Theatres, which theatre, what show-times, as a DVD or BluRay on Amazon, on TV soon, and so forth.

Everyone I discussed those services with, thus far, were amazed with how useful that would be.

I then ask them: Why is it so hard to give them money that we need services to instruct people how to legally license content?

What if the person watching the content at a friend’s house ends up purchasing it? They are attempting to open up extra streams of revenue by controlling the system more aggressively. When the system gets too convoluted for users to abide by they blame that loss in revenue on piracy.

You could imagine this occurring for video games as well: what if a publisher decides that split-screen gaming is a premium service to be licensed on a per-controller basis? The content industry is attempting to focus their licensing arrangements as granularly as possible. This is bad for you, it is often bad for them, and it is terrible for society.

Do not assume that a copyright holder will act sensibly. It is not about cheap people. It is often not even about revenue despite whether they believe it is or not. Just look at Ubisoft’s DRM “success”. An exodus of 90% of your customers should never be called a success and yet they genuinely believed it was.

At CES 2012, Microsoft announced that they would be releasing a Kinect sensor and SDK (software development kit) for Windows. In that same vien, the company is now exploring the idea of integrating a Kinect sensor directly into laptop computers.

Not the actual prototype. Just a mock up I concocted.

The crew over at The Daily managed to get their hands on two such prototype laptops with integrated Kinect sensors. They state tha the two machines resemble Asus laptops that are running Windows 8; however, upon closer inspection, the laptops have removed the typical 1.3 megapixel webcam that is common in today's notebooks and have instead placed a Kinect sensor bar at the top of the display instead. They claim that a source within Microsoft has confirmed that the two laptops are indeed official prototypes.

Unfortunately, there aren't many details beyond that. Whether Microsoft will forge ahead with this idea and license out the Kinect technology to laptop makers or if the prototypes will go into some bunker somewhere and never see the light of day still remains a mystery. Currently at $250 (to end users, OEMs could likely cut a much better deal), it is not likely that we will see a proliferation of Kinect sensors into all manner of displays for notebooks, TVs, and desktops. If Microsoft could get the cost of the technology down far enough that manufacturers could justify adding it, it could definitely catch on. In the end, I don't think we'll be seeing Kinect powered computers any time soon, but in the future when the hardware is cheaper and there are Kinect for Windows applications readily available, it could happen. Would you like to see Kinect in your laptop (insert Xzibit meme here) or desktop monitor, and if so what would you like to do with it?

Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer announced at the Consumer Electronics Show that on February 1st, the new Kinect sensor for Windows would become available for purchase. In addition to the new Kinect for Windows sensor hardware, Microsoft is releasing an official SDk or Software Development Kit. Having the SDK installed on a Windows operating system will be required in order to use Kinect software applications. Currently, there are no (Microsoft official) consumer applications using Kinect; however, official hardware and an official SDK will surely spur software development.

Microsoft is confident that the launch of the SDK and specially tuned hardware will spur development of software. According to MSNBC, the company is working with over 200 companies to develop software applications for Windows using Kinect. Microsoft's partners include Toyota, Mattel, American Express, and United Health Group. These corporate partners seem to indicate that initial Kinect applications will be designed for consumers to use in a business setting, say on a sales floor of car dealerships, at hospitals, or point of sale devices (maybe American Express is planning a "card swipe" application where holding the card up to the Kinect can be used to purchase items. Software for consumers to use at home is also likely in the pipeline and users will see them in the future.

Due to the Microsoft Kinect for Windows sensor not being subsidized by Xbox 360 games and accessories, the PC version is $100 more than the Xbox 360 version, and will retail for $250 USD. Amazon currently has the device (for pre-order) here for a whole penny less at $249.99.

The Razer Hydra bears a small resemblance to the Wii controller at first glance but that is quickly dispelled when you realize you get two devices to hold. Both have 4 face buttons, a 'start' button, a clickable analog stick and two bumper triggers, which give you enough input options for PC gaming. The wired base station these controllers use senses the small magnetic field the controllers emit, which is how the motion sensing capabilities work. That field was not enough to disturb any of tbreak's other equipment which is vital to the success of the controller. As for gaming? With Portal 2 they had a blast, but when it came to other shooters ... not so much.

"The Hydra is not spectacularly different, it uses the same nun-chuck approach of the Wii, however it’s technology and precision far outclasses Nintendo’s toy. According to Razer, the Hydra uses magnetic forces to detect the exact location and orientation of the controllers and delivers an “ultra-low latency”, “fluid and precise” gaming experience."